1. Field of The Invention
The present invention relates to the contacts for a circuit board socket, and the invention is particularly concerned with the problem of obtaining adequate contact force between the contacts of a circuit board socket and the conductive contact areas of the circuit board, and constitutes an improvement of the structure disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,617 assigned to the same assignee as the invention herein.
2. The Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,617 discloses a practical and beneficial improvement of a circuit board socket to prevent the latch means from breakage resulting from improper movement. Referring to FIG. 1, it will be seen that the contact of the patent consists of one contact leg and one fulcrum leg. Because the fulcrum leg lacks sufficient flexibility to cooperate with the contact leg to effect adequate engagement with the conductive area of the circuit board, sometimes an imperfect contact occurs between the contact of the socket and the conductive area of the circuit board.
To overcome the forgoing disadvantage of the prior art contacts, it is an object of the present invention to provide a contact which provides an improved conductive engagement between the socket contact and the conductive contact area of the circuit board.
Another object of the invention is to provide a contact by which the installation method can be altered from an upward direction to a downward direction without damaging the main body of the contact so that the recess of the socket can be reduced and the bottom surface of the contact will not be contaminated during soldering of the socket on the main board.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a contact which forms a stop means on either side of the main body so that the contact will not be over-stressed notwithstanding application of an improper insertion force.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a contact which is easy to insert into the slot evenly and exactly.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a contact which, for different type sockets, may be conveniently modified by changing only the corresponding dies of the side parts, and not the corresponding dies of main parts, thus increasing its versatility in manufacturing to produce different type contacts for different type sockets, such as vertical type, slanted type, or horizontal type, etc.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a contact with which can be used various types of carrier strips stamped to form the contact.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a contact which is easy to be applied to surface mount technology in soldering processes.
The invention possesses other objects and features of advantage, some of which with the foregoing, will be apparent from the description and drawings. It is to be understood however that the invention is not limited to the embodiment described and illustrated since it may be embodied in various forms within the scope of the appended claims.